


Delphic

by ShyGirl1918



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childbirth, Dusting Off My Childhood Fanfics, F/M, Heartbreak, I Tried, Possible Sequel if Encouraged, This Is STUPID, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 08:58:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20061397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyGirl1918/pseuds/ShyGirl1918
Summary: When the seas are tamed and the ritual is concluded, Calypso is left to fend for herself.





	Delphic

**Author's Note:**

> A warning to all ye kind readers: I haven't seen any of the POTC movies aside from the original trilogy, and this story was written when I was a wee lass of eight or nine, just as I had finished DMC and was on the verge of watching AWE. As such, I imagine the events described differ in comparison to canon, and would subsequently be classified as an AU of sorts. I stumbled across this old drabble of mine by pure accident while deleting old files from my flash drive, and decided to clean it up and post it out of curiosity. Any feedback or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

When the seas are tamed and the ritual is concluded, Calypso is left to fend for herself.

It is strange, this body. She feels as though she’s wearing clothes that are much too tight. Nothing fits as it should. Her skin, now the hue of damp driftwood, feels bunched around her limbs and coarse as a crab shell. Dark braids cluster around her head like seaweed, thick and matted. The dark tattoos on her face proclaim her host an obeah - she wonders if that was intentional, being bound to a sorceress. Her host is young, but powerful enough to sustain her essence. It will take time to acclimate. Calypso knows this.

Tentatively, she takes a step. Her limbs feel like jelly. Another. Soon she is running across the banks, far from the impromptu altar erected by the Brethren Court. The sea stings her eyes, the sand burning the soles of her bare feet. Her lungs ache. But she keeps moving, disheveled hair and lithe limbs glowing in the setting sun.

****

* * *

****  
It is harder to speak. The sounds are harsh, guttural. Her new accent grates on her ears like the rasp of a ship’s hull against a coral reef, nothing like the mellifluous Scottish brogue of her beloved. She sounds more like a dying animal than a human, struggling to string a coherent sentence together.

She finds a new home in Cuba. The inhabitants of the swamp have skin as dusky as her own, but the accents vary in prominence and origin. She stumbles across their territory completely by accident, half-starved and weak from fatigue. They are initially wary, but they soon warm to her. Embrace her as one of their own, once they spot the telltale black markings on her cheeks.

She will need a new name. The Court’s defiling geis marked the end of her reign over the sea. Calypso the sea goddess is now reduced to the stuff of legends and fable. She ponders on the subject, combing through the horde of memories and knowledge she’d collected over the eons.

Passionate nights spent in the _Dutchman_'s cabin. Numerous topics discussed, the spectrum ranging from astrology, to literature, to the weather…

Tia Dalma, she decides finally. An amalgam of Dalmatia, the ancient haven of seafarers and pirates. It feels right. Appropriate, to an extent. But the irony isn’t lost on her.

****

* * *

****  
Six months since her imprisonment. She is still alienated to an extent by her new neighbors, but now she isn’t completely alone. She hadn’t had a chance to tell Davy other than a cryptic hint on their last night together - “When next we meet ashore, I’ll have a gift for you” - and likely never would. Being cut off from the sea was still painful, but her new vessel allowed their child to develop on its own, and she takes some small comfort in that. She smiles wanly in the quiet of her shack, gently runs a hand along her distended abdomen, clasping the locket in the other. The tune plays softly, its silvery notes as haunting as the first time she heard them. The babe kicks inside her at the melody.

Witty Jack is becoming increasingly attached, she notes vaguely. Not in a romantic way, no... Their bond was more akin to a brother and sister. Calypso didn’t know what to think of the scrawny young boy when he first arrived in the swamp, but she could see his destiny shining from every pore, bright as the sun. They were drawn to the other, entranced. Two sides of the same coin. She provided her talents as he saw fit, and he gave her what company he could, entertaining her with biting jests and wild tales.

He was a good boy, but a pale imitation of her love. She asked no more of Jack than what he already gave.

****

* * *

  
Her time comes during a rain without end. Attended by three of her closest neighbors, the younger two holding both of her hands and supporting her writhing frame between them, the eldest kneeling at the foot of the pallet. Magic thrums in her veins, her mortal body betraying her. The pain comes in bouts and waves, increasingly violent. Jack watches the bloody scene with wary eyes, his coltish posture rigid. He shouldn’t be here, has no cause to stay. But he has; a silent guardian.

Her body is not her own. Her mind is not hers. She no longer hears the faint burble of the Pantano River, the sounds of the animals. Before her, the sea in all its fury, thrashing against a rocky shore studded with crosses, no two alike. Footprints snake up the side, achingly familiar.

_My sweet…_

Calypso chokes on a sob. Her love stands before her, his graying hair and beard damp from the storm. A shovel lies at his feet, his blue eyes almost vacant as he slumps in the freshly dug hole. No, not vacant. She could see the unshed tears clinging to his eyelashes. He looked old. Tired. Broken.

Two chests sit in the damp soil. One large and wooden, filled with various paraphernalia - numerous letters wrapped in ribbon or twine; strings of glossy pearls, an opalescent shell or two. All tokens of their time together, Calypso recognizes with a chill - the other much smaller and crafted of solid iron.

Davy Jones emerges from the pit he constructed, his skin caked in sweat and dirt. Only now does she realize he’s stripped to the waist, the broad planes of his back and shoulders stiff from his exertions. He kneels before the pit, removes a small silver blade from his boot. The knife gleams, water pooling on the tip. Calypso screams as he extends his arms, right hand clenched around it, but the noise is drowned by the thunder.

The jarring tear of flesh and muscle, a scrape of sharpened steel against bone. The very center of her chest feels as though it will burst into flame... In that moment, she knows what he's done, and the agony of that knowledge is worse than any physical wound. It snaps her back into her host with all the force of a gale.

Tears blind her host's eyes, sweat matting the dark hair to its scalp. The pain - physically and emotionally - reaches its climax, and it pushes her over the edge. Just as her vision begins to turn white, a fragment of one of Davy’s numerous books returns to her, burning itself on the front of her mind like a flame.

_All the old knives that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours._

She laughs until she cries, and then finally screams. A high, wordless note that pierces the air of the shack; undulating in its sorrow.

Her vision turns dark and she knows no more.


End file.
